First Sentence

My kids are slaying me lately.

What I mean is, they are doing the absolute cutest things that makes me want to freeze them at exactly the ages they are now- 5.5 and 4. Earlier in the month, Buddy "won" me a beautiful broach at the Penny Social. A week later...

I was standing at the stove, going about supper preparations, and Rosie comes running into the kitchen. I don't know about the kids in your life, but my kids literally never walk anywhere. Can you imagine how much better shape all of us grown-ups would be in if we did the same? But I digress...

"Mama! I made something for you!" she says, excitedly. I smile because my little miss Rosie, who is not always in the best of moods after a long bus ride and an even longer school day, has transitioned and is now ready to engage. I bend over to look, expecting the usual house, rainbow, stick figures, and, instead, I see clear as day in all capital letters:

I LOVE MOM

My eyes immediately well up. She's come home from school with printed sentences, sure, but this was the very first time I had seen a sentence of hers that she had written at home, unprompted,and completely by herself.

I hugged her tightly and told her how much it meant to me. At that moment, Steve called on his way home from work, and I put him on speaker phone, and the three of us talked about it.

I keep that sentence she wrote in a special place. I never want to lose the first note my daughter ever gave me.

A Small Goal

One of the many things I admired about both of my grandmothers was their ability to identify wildflowers, cultivated flowers, birds and wildlife. While a bit of it did stick with me over the years, when they passed, I no longer walked with anyone who knew these things, and so many of the flowers around me went unidentified.

It was six years ago when I was pregnant with Rosie and we moved back here, to my childhood home. There's definitely a difference between how you see the land when you're a kid, and then when it's yours as an adult. I could not believe the multitude of flowers that sprung up everywhere around the yard, and how very few I realized I knew by name.

So, I had good intentions. The next spring I took photos of the flowers as they popped out, and since I didn't have a flower reference book, I compared to photos on the internet. I had some luck, but others I could not find. My project was shortly abandoned.

Fast forward to now. Our family friend, Jon, happens to be a plant and soil sciences major. He knows most all of the wildflowers, like my grandmothers did! With his help, after 6 years, I'm finally identifying the flowers on our property: Siberian squill, Bloodroot, Lesser celandine, and Creeping Charlie, to name a few.  We've identified 12 in total so far, and I couldn't be more thrilled.

I want to share this knowledge with my kids, like my grandmothers did with me, and if I have the pleasure of living to a well-ripened age, I'll share with my grandkids, too.

It's a very small goal that I am happy to be making progress on once again.

A Month Later

It's been one month since I put down my cell phone, and here's what I've learned:

1. A watch is a wonderfully useful device. I can check the time and not be bombarded with notifications of 8 emails and 5 texts.

2. Carrying a book on me is priceless. I can't believe I ever stopped bringing my book to waiting rooms in lieu of scrolling through my phone.

3. The anxiety we may feel when email after email from our boss rolls in is self-inflicted. Yes, there are many jobs where you need to be on top of your email at all times. Thankfully, my jobs do not require this. There isn't anything that can't wait a few hours. 24 hours of accessibility is something we have brought upon ourselves, and only we can reverse it.

4. You know what was happening when I was staring down at my phone over a month ago? Life. Kids wanting to show me a crocus peaking out of the leaves. Dogs wanting a scratch under the chin. The beauty of afternoon sunshine filling my kitchen, waiting to be appreciated. Now that I've regulated myself to only looking at my cell a few times a day, I am present. I am here. I'm taking it all in- the good and the bad- and not hiding from it behind my phone.

5. My expensive cell phone is also my camera, and I'm not going to feel badly about grabbing it to snap a photo here and there, as long as it doesn't completely interfere with the moment. It's great to capture an experience, it's not great to ignore the company of everyone around me because I'm engrossed in documenting every single thing.

6. If I feel like posting something to Facebook once or twice throughout the day, it's ok. I can do that, and walk away without scrolling through my newsfeed. The two do not have to go hand in hand. Facebook is one of the places where I chronicle my life, and that's not a bad thing.

7. I am schedule-oriented. If I tell myself I'm putting the cell down at x o'clock and not looking at it again until x o'clock, I can do that. My friendships have not suffered, I have not suffered. Nothing but good has come out of self-regulating.

8. Leaving my cell behind became more and more natural as the weeks went on. I didn't think twice about leaving it in the car when we visited friends last weekend. I was there to visit, and if there was a moment when I wasn't engrossed in conversation, I didn't need to take my phone out and swipe through it until someone wanted my attention again. What used to be considered completely rude has become commonplace. I want to teach my kids another way.

I've officially broken free from my "pacifier", and it really is freeing. There's no way I'm going back to the way I was before. I don't think it's coincidence that many more blog posts have come to mind in the past month. Simply put, my mind is now actively engaged in this beautiful world around me, and inspiration is there.

I can't wait to share it with you.

Penny Social

Last weekend we went to our church's penny social with Steve's family, and, to my delight, my grandfather, Marge, Uncle Scott and Therese also came! There was a delicious spaghetti supper, followed by the largest dessert table I've ever seen. I can appreciate folks like this!

There was also a terrific raffle, with items ranging from a pocket knife to maple syrup to wagon rides. I did mention this was in the hilltowns, right? I loved every minute of it.

We let the kids have a few tickets to put in for items that they wanted. Lo and behold, our table of 11 won 11 items, including a purple flower broach that Buddy had won with one of his tickets. He sat on my lap, and together, he and I Oohed and Ahhed over it. I said "Buddy, this is so pretty!"

"Mama," he says, "I put my ticket in for you. This is for you, for your birthday!" (Which was the next day.)

My eyes welled up. I couldn't believe my little 4 year old boy had tried to win me something in the raffle. The box containing the broach sits proudly on my bureau, and he and I look at it often. He keeps asking when I'm going to wear it, so I think I will have to soon. I'll be proud to wear the pin my little boy won for me.

Two Weeks in

It was in the second week of my less-cell-phone resolution, that I found a pattern that works. Finding that pattern, a schedule, something that works, is key to any goal. It was my key to losing weight three years ago, and now it's my key to living life a little more off the grid.

Instead of checking my phone on the hour or worse, I'm down to a few times a day. I send some good morning texts before my kids get up, and then all devices away while I'm getting them ready for school. Once Rosie's on the bus, and Buddy's at preschool, I take a minute to respond to texts, and then I essentially put my phone away until lunch time, approximately 1:30pm.

No Facebook, no emails, no texts.

Have I mentioned that my anxiety has decreased significantly? It really has.

I'm engaging more with the people around me, and when I'm alone, I just let my mind wander without feeling the pressure of responding to emails and Facebook comments and messages immediately. When I know I might be in a situation where I'll have to do some waiting (i.e. doctor's office), I've gotten back in the habit of bringing a book with me. Unlike when I aimlessly perused my cell, reading a chapter never, ever feels like a waste of time.

After my 15 minutes at lunch time, my cell goes back in its place, in a corner of the kitchen, where I can honestly report that it's become part of the scenery lately, instead of a lifeline.

If I have plans or a meeting that night, I will probably pick my cell back up around 5pm just to check that nothing has been cancelled or changed. Otherwise? Yesterday my cell just sat there for approximately 6 hours.

It's been such a big change for me, and I am happy that I've been able to stick with it. I also bought a watch this week for the first time in over 10 years, and that has been a huge help. They do still serve a purpose! You can check the time and not be bombarded with a million, mostly-useless notifications.

They say it takes approximately three weeks to form a new habit. I'm on my way there! If you don't like an aspect of your life, change it. So much more is in our control than we think.